The heart of the Matching Awards Program is to promote community engagement with National Forest System lands. To that end, stewardship activities must be completed by the public via community engagement. Community engagement is defined as in-person involvement of the public and must be the primary focus of every project funded under MAP. The National Forest Foundation recognizes that communities across the country have varied histories and experiences with public lands and expects that effective and appropriate engagement experiences will vary.
Eligible occasions for community engagement in public lands include but are not limited to:
- Public lands days, clean-up days, and similar events
- Field trips for schools or collaborative groups
- Outdoor skills training
- Indigenous ecological practices
- Ceremonies or celebrations related to natural resources
- Nature-based therapeutic activities
- Trail or site ambassador programs
- Community science projects
- Implementation of natural resource stewardship projects (defined below) directly by community members
Eligible stewardship activities include, but are not limited to:
- Recreation site clean-up
- Native tree and shrub planting
- Trail maintenance
- Invasive species control
- Forest and watershed restoration
- Hazardous fuels reduction
- Ecological or social monitoring to inform management decisions
- Educating other public lands users to prevent resource damage